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Ghost in the machine

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As we spent so much of our life online, what happens to our virtual selves when we die? Do they disappear too, or do we become ghosts in the machine?

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Last year, a journalist colleague-cum-friend stopped answering e-mails. At first, I thought he was miffed because a few of the stories he had written came back with critical comments and the client was breathing down my neck to take him off the job.

I knew he was having some kind of difficulty at home and perhaps even financial problems, so I persevered for his sake. A couple of weeks later, I gave the green light for another batch of stories from him.

No response to the e-mail on the first day. This was out of character for this guy because he usually picks up a new commission in a flash. Two, three, four days passed without word. I still thought he was smarting from the client’s rebuke so let it pass. But after two weeks or so something was clearly wrong.

First I tried to call him on his mobile. No answer. I tried his old number – his mother’s I believe. Again nothing. This was not the sort of guy to pass up work, I decided, and definitely not the type to sulk for weeks, so something was definitely going on. It was time to start investigating.

I checked his website, Facebook and LinkedIn. Nothing unusual there – some relatively recent activity. I then did the only other thing I could think of to nip a nagging worry in the bud … Yep, I Googled his name + ‘obituary’. I know it sounds morbid, but if I haven’t communicated the circumstances well enough here, take my word for it that this search was not done flippantly.

Sure enough, the first or second hit was a note in a local newspaper that my colleague-friend of five years had passed away. No mention of how, only that the family expressed its gratitude to a certain hospice which may or may not suggest he had been ill for some time. And when I think about the declining standard of his work, it would make sense.

But the way this happened, or at least the way his ‘virtual’ community (me and perhaps other colleagues and employers) had to learn of his death is what concerns me the most about relationships online. Concern that we build up friendships or professional closeness over the years without any physical foundations or recourse, if that is the right way to express it.

I didn’t know his family, or even if he had one. I had an old landline when he first started working for me but that was superseded by email/LinkedIn and so on. So, once his mobile phone apparently expired or the battery ran out, that was it. His mother, wife, son, or whoever was close to him probably didn’t know his PIN to open it again and answer the worried calls.

What’s more, they probably didn’t know his passwords and access codes to the various social networking tools he used. When I say ‘probably’ I’m just trying to be careful because the guy passed away nearly a year ago and just last week I got a ‘recent activity’ notification from him on LinkedIn.

It’s especially creepy because I still don’t know 100% that he’s dead. Sure, all the evidence indicates it, but with just 0.01% doubt, when you get a nudge from someone online, it makes you wonder. So much so that I had to see what the recent activity was. It appeared to be someone he had invited to join his network had finally got round to accepting it X months later.

Of course this is possible. I opened a LinkedIn account some 10 years ago and conscientiously ignored any and all invitations for nine years, until the system got so insistent that it became easier to accept them all than go through the rigmarole of rejecting and worrying that I’d offended someone (yes, I’m not a digital native … these things worry us ‘physical world’ people).

Post-game plans?

It also makes me wonder if we are overlooking our responsibilities to family and friends (virtual and physical) by not having a … well … post-game plan in case we get knocked over by a bus tomorrow. At least when we owned CDs and other real physical assets it was pretty simple, with or without a will and last testament, your stuff usually just went to the nearest and dearest. But with ‘digital assets’ we’re not even sure we own them, let alone whether we have a plan for how to pass them down to our family or friends.

Take the recent Bruce Willis and Apple story, which may have been false but that’s beside the point because it highlighted the issue of intellectual property rights and digital assets like music downloads, and that we may be only buying listening rights during our tenure on this world. How does that encourage legal downloading and the sustainability of the music/entertainment industry?

Perhaps the smart, discrete, respectful thing to do is to prepare your exit plan from the virtual world as much as you are primed to do so for the physical world. For example, write down the main platforms you engage in and how your family or friend can access them to take possession of any so-called digital assets bequeathed.

Make sure the executor or trusted person has instructions or enough information to shut down the online accounts which otherwise, very disturbingly, live on as ghosts in the machine. And, of course, put all this information somewhere safe from prying eyes, but not so safe that it won’t be found if that bus does have your number on it.

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Tags: death, entertainment, facebook, friends, friendships, ghosts in the machine, identity, linkedin, mobile phone, music, property, relationships, social networking, virtual selves

The last word in music

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By Christian Nielsen

It was the last word in music, and turned words into music. The WORD, which defied the decline in print media with wit, edge and artistry, is no more.

Thursday 26 July 2012

A special edition of The Word dedicated to the “lost music” of Amy Winehouse.

I’m listening to My Darling Clementine’s spittoon-inspired 100,000 Words – just one of the usual 15 tunes that come free each month with the subscribers’ edition of The WORD magazine – and I can’t help but taste the bitter-sweet irony in this sad country song depicting loss and separation … how words just aren’t enough. The song gives way to Cory Branan’s The Freefall.

“What you have in your hands is, very sadly, the final edition of The WORD,” laments the magazine’s editor Mark Ellen. “After nearly 10 years of publishing, it has eventually proved impossible for us to sustain the magazine,” he continues, blaming the wider economic climate, competition with free media and erosion of traditional advertising.

Shock was my first reaction when I read on the cover of The WORD August 2012 edition (issue 114) that it would be the final installment. Not car accident shock, but the feeling that something that should never happen just did. The magazine always struck me as an antidote to the steady decline in print media. When so many publishers were going web-first and looking at how to introduce pay walls, this cheeky, irreverent monthly dared to defy the trend, to stick a finger up at media pundits.

That this British magazine was also a breath of fresh air on the content side was pure bonus material. It called itself ‘More than a music magazine’ and never failed to deliver an eclectic mix of book, film and music reviews, features, as well as an endless supply of clever factoids, ‘best-worst’ comparisons, and various odd-spots and curios. And in every issue I’d look forward to pouring over the list of songs lovingly compiled into a veritable mixed tape from your brother’s cool friend – The WORD staffers.

Where traditional music magazines labour to cover the very latest, hottest, biggest … I always got the feeling that The WORD had the inside edge. Sure, the pedigree of its writers helped open doors to interviews with some of the biggest rock legends on the planet, like Bruce Springsteen and The Cure, but these features were never fawning dross, and as often as not shared the cover with lesser-known mortals of music. Deliberate or not, it showed respect for the industry as a whole, not pandering to the age of celebrity.

The magazine really was about words and their context. Clever turns of phrases, subtle wit, and perhaps a few too many inside jokes (for real music heads only) set it apart from other monthly magazines for people who still read. The writing itself was crafted and usually very well sub-edited. The layout over the years was busy enough but not too crowded.

So where did it all go wrong? Well, there is the general industry malaise and the economic climate, as Mark Ellen suggests, but as an observer of the media’s plight – I read about it in each National Union of Journalists’ newsletter – I can only speculate that there were also some wrong turns made. Other glossies seem to be holding on despite the generally poor conditions for print media. But a flick through any of these stayers and you’ll see full-page ads selling designer clothing or consumer electronics.

The WORD’s advertising stable has been reared almost exclusively on music or music-related fare – record shops, concert promos, festivals, new releases, etc. – and often quarter-page nickel and dime stuff. Rarely did you see a serial advertiser or the high-priced advertorial packages, or those ads ‘facing content’ (articles coinciding with ad spots) which tend to sell for more. This was great for readers who want genuine non-commercially tainted stories; not so great for the publishers.

I do recall a few issues back seeing a series of HMV advertorials, which must have brought in a few pennies, and I even wondered whether that was some kind of new move to drum up business, but then it didn’t continue – maybe too many complaints or it didn’t pan out financially. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I see it was probably last-ditch chemo treatment for the cancer patient.

Oddly enough, perhaps one of the problems was not that The WORD wasn’t niche enough to survive in today’s tough media climate, but that it was too niche. With no insider knowledge of events, I can only surmise this was a topic of serious discussion over the years amongst the editorial board. Even the magazine’s strapline hints at small adjustments to become more niche, followed by an attempt to reel in a bigger readership, then an apparent reversal. ‘More than a music magazine’ became ‘Intelligent life on planet rock’ which in turn opened up to become ‘Entertainment for lively minds’ (ironically around the time of this new strapline it won Music Magazine of the Year). All this suggests the core survival instincts of old media players; using the skills they’ve honed over decades … all to no avail in this new digital époque.

The print world will no doubt be a more forlorn place without magazines like The WORD whose attention to detail and respect for words in all their form offer respite from (social) media pandering (or leading) to today’s attention-deficit audiences. What “lively minds” want, or indeed need, is grown-up content in grown-up formats. We had that. Now we don’t.

I for one will miss it, especially seeing Kate Mossman’s cheeky smile each month in the pick & mix!!

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Tags: advertising, amy winehouse, business, cory branan, darling clementine, economic climate, entertainment, media, music, word magazine

International Women’s Day: Empowering the average Mo

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By Khaled Diab

Arab men who do not fit the traditional ideal of manhood are often regarded as inferior, and this stereotype holds back the emancipation of women.

Thursday 8 March 2012

The feminist cause in the Arab world has generally progressed less than in the West, particularly in the last few decades of rapid Western emancipation.Last year, the egalitarian mass protests that marked the eruption of the Arab Spring looked like they might finally change all that. In Tunisia and Egypt, women from a wide range of backgrounds and walks of life stood shoulder to shoulder with men as equals in the battle against tyranny and for dignity and freedom. “Attitudes toward women are better among the young generation, particularly the middle class, to which most of the politically active women belong,” notes Egyptian feminist and activist Gihan Abou Zeid.

Although women are treated as relative equals by the revolutionary youth movement that has orchestrated the two revolutions, the Muslim conservatives that have made the greatest gains in parliamentary elections in Tunisia and Egypt do not share such enlightened views, although Tunisia Islamists are more progressive than their Egyptian counterparts. And in Egypt, the most troubling development for women has been the unexpected success of the ultra-conservative Salafists who tend to believe that women should neither be seen nor heard.

The reasons that the Arab Spring has not yet blossomed into a summer of gender equality are many and complex. They include the conservative Islamic current that has swept society in recent decades, the discrediting of the Arab model of secularism and suspicion of “Western imports”, and the fact that revolutionising deeply ingrained social attitudes takes far longer to take hold than instigating changes to the political structure.

In addition, one oft-overlooked cultural factor is that, in the bid to invent the new Arab woman, her complement, the new Arab man, has often flown beneath the radar. While independence-seeking Arab women often have clear and positive role models to aspire to in their quest for emancipation, the men in their lives are often left swimming against the tide of popular perception.

Over the years, I have met legions of Arab men who resist female emancipation not out of any abstract objection to gender equality but out of peer pressure and fear of what their families, workmates or neighbours will think of them. Where progressives have failed to capture the imagination of the masses, conservative myth-makers have worked tirelessly to idealise and idolise the vision of invincible, insurmountable manhood. With some brilliant exceptions, television soap operas tend to be the Arab world’s strongest bastion of traditionalism and overt, unsubtle moralising, particularly during the fasting and feasting month of Ramadan.

One hit series which took the Arab world by storm was the Syrian soap opera Bab el-Hara (Alleyway Gate). Set in French-mandate Syria between the two world wars, it paints a sentimental and nostalgic picture of a society peopled by brave and gallant men and their dutiful and obedient women. Director Bassam al-Malla said he intended to create nostalgia for “a world with values, honour, gallantry … and the revolutionary spirit”.

But the world Bab el-Hara attempts to recreate never existed in the first place. “The series conceals all those women who had a political and cultural presence in the Syrian street at that time,” writes Juhayina Khalidiya, in a feminist critique of the TV programme, published in as-Safir newspaper (in Arabic). She notes that expunging such revolutionary women from the narrative is, first and foremost, unfair to their legacy.

This same airbrushing of the heroic and pivotal role women have played in the transformation of society is occurring as we speak among the conservative forces, particularly Islamists, working to hijack the Arab Spring. “The attitude towards women has not been impacted by the historic victory,” says Marwa Rakha, and Egyptian author, broadcaster and blogger. “Men chanted slogans against them like: ‘Men want to topple feminists’ and ‘Since when did women have a voice?’ They were asked to go home and obey God. They were let down by the average Egyptian man and woman alike.”

In addition to the undoubted insult to women this denial of their role represents, the gap between the Arab man, the “average Mo”, and the Arab myth of manhood is bound to breed feelings of inadequacy, because the chasm between fantasy and reality is a yawning one. In the more secular Arab countries, women make up their fair share of the labour force, hold top professional and political positions, often perform better academically than their male peers and refuse the deferential role their grandmothers and great-grandmothers took for granted.

This gap between ideal and reality carries echoes of England from the 19^th and up to the first half of the 20^th century. In his book The English, Jeremy Paxman writes that British men were “uneasily aware of the injustice of denying women a full role in society”. As if commenting on Bab el-Hara, he notes that: “The stronger the challenge [to the male order], the more vociferous the evangelism about how the family was the cornerstone of the safe and ordered society.”

In contrast to the idealised “real men” of the past in Bab el-Hara, another hit Ramadan series distorts the contemporary reality by depicting the modern man as weak, indecisive and dominated by the women in his life. Yehia el-Fakharani, one of Egypt’s most accomplished actors, abandoned his normal roles of the sophisticated lawyer, MP or professor, to play that of a 60-year-old mummy’s boy in “Yetraba fi Ezzo”.

In the series, his character, Hamada Ezzo, is completely dependent on his mother for direction in every aspect of his life. “This kind of negative character is one of the causes of our falling behind the technologically advanced nations … We see his type frequently in our midsts as Egyptians and Arabs,” the London-based Arabic daily, al-Hayat, quoted el-Fakharani as saying.

He went on to express his belief that the coming generation had to be more hardworking and conscientious to keep up with the times and not depend on past glories. While it is hard to fault this sentiment, the choice of a man living under his mother’s thumb as a parable for the times is telling.

This soap is an odd way to inspire the young generation. If that was truly the writer’s aim, why not, instead of fixating on a nearly-retired man’s subservient relationship with his mother, challenge the rigid and stifling pecking order that keeps the young from reinventing society or the prejudices that keep the female half of the population from fulfilling their full potential?

In real life, Yehia el-Fakhrani is quite an admirable picture of the modern man, a middle-aged “metrosexual”, which makes his pandering to this warped view all the more confounding. He is gentle, caring, considerate and tolerant, while the women in his life are intelligent and successful. His wife, for instance, wrote a critically acclaimed TV drama chronicling the reign of King Farouq.

As long as conservative circles continue successfully to equate female emancipation with male emaciation, the quest for gender equality will stall. Although Arab cinema and literature have carried plenty of examples of modern, progressive men, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, the problem is that these tend to be quite westernised, and hence alien to your average Arab man on the street.

What we need are mainstream, “average Mo” role models who demonstrate that believing in gender equality squares with being a man, and that empowering women also empowers men and society as a whole.

More articles on gender issues can be found here and here.

This is an updated version of a column which appeared in The Guardian’s Comment is Free on 26 October 2007. Read the related discussion.

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Tags: arab spring, arab world, culture, drama, egypt, emancipation of women, entertainment, gender, gender issues, international women's day, islamist, men, revolution, secularism, soap operas, tunisia, west, women

Ramadan for all

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By Khaled Diab

Ramadan is when Muslims fast and feast, but the holy month has something to offer those of other faiths, or none.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Ramadan has something of a tendency to bend space and time. For those participating in the fast, especially now that it is summer, the daytime hours crawl by like a snail on tranquilisers, while engaging in daily routines is like running a marathon through a desert of thirst. In contrast, nights are transformed into veritable days, with cafes and restaurants bursting at the seams with patrons late into the night, especially in my hometown Cairo, the world’s top ‘city that never sleeps’, according to a recent survey.

In the Holy Land, the holy month has even resulted in Israelis and Palestinians temporarily living in different time zones, as the Palestinian territories switch to winter time in a bid to make the fast a little easier. Some cynics on both sides might quip that, Ramadan or not, Israelis and Palestinians already figuratively live in different time zones, not to mention on different planets.

But Ramadan, despite being primarily an occasion for Muslims, provides a golden
opportunity for soul searching, reflection and bridge-building in this troubled land. Towards that end, Jews and Christians were invited to attend an interfaith iftar (the meal breaking the fast at sunset) in Haifa where, in addition to feasting, participants provided one another with food for thought as they chewed over questions of tolerance and mutual respect against the backdrop of conflict.

Even Israel’s hard-line prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been a harsh critic of Islam over the years and who warned of an Islamist takeover in Egypt during the early days of the revolution, also tried to get into the spirit of the season with a video in which he wished Palestinian Muslims and Muslims around the world a ‘Ramadan Karim’.

Not to be outdone, the IDF announced the easing of restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza which, though far from adequate, at least allow Palestinians some extra mobility to visit their families during Ramadan. However, the restrictions on men under the age of 45 praying at the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, are still in place, much to the frustration of Palestinians. As I walked through the old city on Friday morning to take my son to his crèche, it felt eerie to be more or less the only young man on the streets.

Ramadan also illustrates that, despite current political differences, Israelis and Palestinians share a lot of common religious ground. Fasting is common, despite variations, to the three Abrahamic faiths, as well as to other religions around the world.

Although observant Jews only fast a maximum of six days a year, the central fast, on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the holiest day in Judaism, is a gruelling 25-hour affair. Although even at its toughest, the Ramadan fast last for about 20 hours, it is nonetheless like a whole month of mini Yom Kippurs.

Not only is the word for ‘fasting’ more or less the same in Arabic and Hebrew, Ramadan and Yom Kippur etiquette is surprisingly similar, with non-observant Muslims and Jews generally refraining from eating in public, though Muslims do continue to drive. Moreover, though the pace of life slows considerably during Ramadan, it does not come to a grinding halt as it does during Yom Kippur.

Given the general contemporary distrust between Jews and Muslims, it may surprise many to learn that some Jews actually observe Ramadan. “I kept Ramadan for seven years but I don’t keep it anymore,” says Ya’qub Ibn Yusuf (original name Joshua) from Jerusalem. “Fasting is tough the first few days, but then your body gets the message and adjusts.”

And seeing others eat and drink around him did not bother Ya’qub in the slightest. He likens it to “watching a couple holding hands” – “It doesn’t make you horny – it just makes you happy for them.”

Ya’qub sees no contradiction between being a Sufi and a Jew. In fact, he describes himself as a ‘fairly conservative’ and observant Jew, despite the fact that he dresses in secular garb.

Although political animosity and conflict have driven a wedge between Jews and Muslims, there is nothing ‘New Age’ or novel about such spiritual cross-over or ‘fusion spiritualism’, if you like.

Sufism is a generally inclusive, esoteric form of Islam which has been influenced by a wide range of mystical philosophies, including the Christian monastic tradition, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.

It also had a profound effect on medieval Jewish thought. For example, Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon, the son of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, believed that Sufi practices and doctrines were in the lost tradition of the Biblical prophets and so introduced into Jewish prayer the Sufi dhikr/zikr (the reciting of God’s name), prostration, the stretching out of hands, kneeling, and the ablution of the feet.

Ramadan is not just for the religious, it also has something to offer secularists and the a-religious, like myself. Fasting Ramadan was the only pillar of Islam I ever practised consistently. This might have been because the month carries a secular appeal: fasting is not just a ritual for its own sake but is also about self-discipline, exercising control over your physical urges and empathising with the predicament of the less fortunate.

But I have not fasted for many long years, yet certain aspects of the spirit of Ramadan still inspire my faithless bones. Despite the ready tempers, traffic jams, runaway consumerism and irritability of some, not to mention the Palestinian love for loud nightly fireworks displays, Ramadan is marked by a special spirit of solidarity, camaraderie, unison and communalism.

Ramadan nights have a special enchantment, a kind of festive magic. And it is this dimension of Ramadan which I miss the most when I am in Europe: the delicious delicacies at communal iftars, sentimental soaps and corny comedies on TV, socialising in smoky cafes late into the night, pre-dawn beans on a Cairo street corner. Although Jerusalem is not as lively as sleepless Cairo and most Palestinian Muslims spend Ramadan visiting family and friends, there are still Ramadan nights entertainments to be found here.

Whether you fast or not, are Muslim or not, the social and cultural aspects of Ramadan are open to all to savour.

This article first appeared in The Jerusalem Post on 7 July 2011.

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Tags: a-religious, binyamin netanyahu, christian, conflict, egypt, entertainment, europe, faith, fast, fasting, feasting, food, gaza, holy land, holy month, idf, islam, israel, jerusalem, judaism, muslims, palestinians, ramadan, religion, tolerance

UnPrezidented

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By Khaled Diab

If Barack Obama were a pop star, he would be a jazz musician or a rapper, not a Britney Spears. And to prove it, BaRock should release an election rap, UnPrezidented.

August 2008

www.barackobama.com

John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, has suggested, in a campaign ad, that Barack Obama is a celebrity of the Britney Spears or Paris Hilton mould. Now that’s what I call Ludacris.

Not only do the two examples have little in common – one is a self-made pop sensation, the other is an heir-head airess whose name sounds like a branch of her family’s hotels – other than the fact that they are young women, Obama is too smart to be an underachieving rich girl and too cool to be a pop starlet. If Obama were a musician, he would probably be a jazz musician or possibly a rapper.

In fact, Obama should take up McCain’s invitation to sing and release a campaign rap song, since he is a self-confessed rap fan. For the single, he could give himself a typically rap-like nom de guerre. I reckon BaRock would work well because it intimates that Barack rocks, while, for the more classically inclined, it suggests a more timeless aspect.

His election single would be entitled UnPrezidented and would outline his electoral platform while taking digs at McCain. Here’s an excerpt I wrote:

My name’s BaRock

I’m UnPrezidented

I’m here to rock ’n’ shock the nation

Cuz de Repubs gave us a bad reputation

Well, I’m gonna set dat straight

’For it’s too late

Cuz the world can’t wait

Vote UnPrezidented

No, might don’t make right

We don’t want no mo’ fight

Me, I’m boff black’n’white

I’m UnPrezidented

Given how hollow McCain’s campaign is, perhaps he should retire from the presidential race and make way for Paris Hilton, the self-professed ‘moderate Republican’. In fact, the heiress has launched her own spoof presidential campaign in which she outlines a more sensible energy and environmental policy than the Republicans – which isn’t saying much.

With celebrity culture the way it is, it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that McCain will recruit her as his running mate. If he does, then Obama may be forced to look to the entertainment world for his vice-presidential candidate to even the odds. Fortunately, he won’t be short of A-list progressives: George Clooney, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins or Bruce Springsteen.

Come to think of it. If Obama doesn’t make it to the White House or once his term in office is up, he could always cash in on his fame and become a performing artist. We’ve had Ronald Reagan as president, why not have some reverse fertilisation?

This is an archived article from Diabolic Digest.

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Tags: barack obama, britney spears, candidate, celebrity, culture, entertainment, jazz, john mccain, ludacris, music, paris hilton, pop, presidential race, rap, usa

Good news, bad ads

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By Christian Nielsen

Global TV networks provide us with insight into major events around the world. But surely we can do without the terrible ‘global ads’.

7 April 2010

Of course, a massive global audience is prime pickings for ‘international’ ads. But it’s a pity that channels like CNN and BBC World allow below-par advertising, tourism promos, and corporate- and investment-awareness campaigns to undermine what can be excellent programming.

Serious news magazines, debates, documentaries and reportages are peppered endlessly by the dumbest, poorest-written ads from countries all the world, from Georgia and Macedonia to South Africa, the Gulf states and Taiwan.

Just recently, I was watching a very important debate on CNN about the Catholic church in crisis following further allegations of child sex abuse cases and calls for the Pope to stand down. The Larry King Live report was interrupted every few minutes by a series of stupid, ill-placed ads for Georgia and Taiwan.

“Grim these days – crisis everywhere? Mmm what’s that shining dot there? Georgia. Hello, people, what’s going on?” the annoying narrator asks.

[The camera zooms in on a naff party scene with two screens in the background scrolling a set of uninteresting facts about investment in Georgia.]

The party group shout, en masse and oh so naturally, that they are celebrating World Bank figures indicating how good it is to invest in Georgia, despite the current economic climate.

Jesus, who writes this crap? Who signs off on it in the organisations responsible? Who at the networks allows it to be programmed? And who deems it appropriate to accompany Larry Kind Live talking about child abuse?

World programming doesn’t have to mean the demolition of the English language in poorly conceived and poorly executed advertising and promotions. Get your act together CNN, BBC World, etc. - don’t accept these sub-standard ads… the money is NOT worth it!

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Tags: advertising, bbc world, catholic church, child abuse, cnn, entertainment, larry king live, media, news, satellite tv

Getting in your face – it’s a sensitive issue

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By Ray O’Reilly

Do you breed people like Nick Cave, or do they grow organically? Some adults and children are just more in tune with their surroundings.

10 December 2009

Let’s face it, some people are crap at reading body language. They get in your face, keep asking uncomfortable questions, and basically ignore your subtle, probably subconscious efforts to shut them down. Do they learn to be ignorant of these signals or is it something more hardwired?

My suspicion is you learn some of the basics in childhood – you know when dad is bloody furious and your mum is exhausted answering your questions – but the really refined observations seem to be the reserve of a few more sensitive souls.

I have two boys who are under five years old. Both are bright kids and both are building a good understanding of their surroundings – even basics like road sense are related here. But one of the boys seems more attuned to people, more aware of their so-called micro-gestures. The other, although younger, shows less of this sort of intuitiveness exhibited by his brother at the same age, or he’s more focused on the content of the information he takes in than the delivery man.

I’ll give you an example of the elder’s insights. A while back I was reading The WORD magazine which ran a feature on Nick Cave. The article included a large face shot of the Bad Seeds front man. To an adult who can read the text and understand the context – the main point is Cave has just published his second book called The death of Bunny Munro which is quite typically dark – the shot does appear menacing. But to children, it’s a man with no history – they don’t know about his reportedly drug-fuelled, rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle or his deeper poetic nature – it’s just a picture.

So what does the picture say to a child?

Looking over my shoulder while I was reading the story, my boy says to me: “Why is he angry?”

I didn’t answer straight away – because we were supposed to be having ‘quiet time’ – but in the meantime he corrected himself (this is a true story) and added: “I mean, why is he thinking so much about things?”

Jesus, what a cracker! He was bang on. At first, the photo gives an angryish aura (the heavy furrows in Cave’s brow dominate), but on closer inspection, and with the use of shadowy light, it means to explore the more pensive aspects of his nature. He is looking leftward but facing more or less front on. His eyebrows are curving only slightly downward, he has a don’t-mess-with-me moustache but it’s neat enough to say that I’m not really that wild. His bright blue eyes are more fiery than fury.

The caption to the picture (something my son could not read) says, “Cave ponders the male condition –‘a half-dead blob somewhere between a human and an ape’.” There you have it.

I told my son that he was right, that Mr Cave has a lot on his mind, that he is a creative person who needs to think about things more than most. I said he probably isn’t angry but is trying to find answers to some questions people keep asking him. My son nodded, and accepted this explanation. It’s important not to disabuse children when their instincts dish up new insights. The same goes when he asks “what were you and mummy just arguing about”. In this case, though, I do tend to embellish, because I don’t like the truth myself.

So, my gut feeling is, like you get people who have ‘super-sensitive’ noses that smell a fart 50m away, others are super-sensitive face readers, the people watchers of the world, the pure ‘paralinguists’ on the planet.

Super-sensitive adults probably learn to conceal their observations out of necessity, because it makes others uncomfortable, and maybe it’s easier not to see some things just to cope with the human condition. But in the case of kids, they’re not likely to be that conscious yet, so giving expression to what they are seeing is just a learning process. And some are clearly better at it than others. I’ll be watching theses developments in my own two boys most keenly, especially as I’ve promised my electric guitar to the eldest if he learns to play properly.

Mmm, now it’s time for me to ponder after finishing Caves new book… Do I really want something like that in my life?

You betcha. Better too sensitive and creative than being pig ignorant and getting in people’s face without even knowing it!

A version of this article first appeared in (A)Way magazine. It is republished here with the author’s permission. © Copyright Ray O’Reilly.

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Tags: entertainment, music, nick cave, parenthood, people skills, psychology, sensitivity, sociability, understanding

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